https://doi.org/10.1177/0741713620962069 Adult Education Quarterly 2020, Vol. 70(4) 315–320 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0741713620962069 journals.sagepub.com/home/aeq Editorial Mattering Is the Minimum: An Editorial From AEQ’s Editors Elizabeth A. Roumell 1 , Kevin M. Roessger 2 , and Ellen Boeren 3 The year 2020 has presented itself as a historical watershed in many ways, forcing us to reconsider the meaning of the current status quo, as well as our place and role in the evolving narrative of the field of adult education, literacy, and learning. As a team of editors, we felt it was necessary to write this Adult Education Quarterly (AEQ) editorial to communicate with our readership our reflections on current events. We acknowledge and recognize our privileged positionality as White scholars in a White-dominated field within a wider academic landscape characterized by strong social, economic, and racial inequalities. We know editorializing runs many risks, and yet to remain silent would equally communicate values, overt and hidden, to the discipline. While we are hesitant to use this platform in a manner that could be misconstrued as an abuse of our role, we do feel we are living in unprecedented times and silence is not an option. Therefore, • In light of witnessing the brutal and inhumane murder of George Floyd at the hand of law enforcement on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Breonna Taylor, and more recently Jacob Blake among far too many more Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and Women of Color • Regarding the overwhelming national and global response to the ongoing, sys- temic, undeniable injustices and oppression of BIPOC globally, and more spe- cifically the outcry of Black Americans who have experienced centuries of brutal oppression at the hand of colonization and White supremacy • With regard to the “Black Lives Matter” social movement that has once again centered our national and global attention on the growing epidemic of racism, prejudice, and discrimination 1 Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA 2 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA 3 University of Glasgow, UK Corresponding Author: Elizabeth A. Roumell, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Email: earoumell@tamu.edu 962069AEQ XX X 10.1177/0741713620962069Adult Education QuarterlyRoumell et al. research-article 2020